


Someone You Can Bleed On

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Series: The Patience of Angels [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Gen, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Poison, Protective Crowley, Scared Crowley (Good Omens), Stabbing, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19932976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Crowley has to deal with a badly hurt Aziraphale. But it's not easy for a demon to heal an angel.





	Someone You Can Bleed On

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “Hurts.” “I know. It’s going to hurt some more, okay? Deep breaths. I'm sorry- I’m so sorry-” (cigaretteburnslikefairylights)
> 
> Time period-wise, I'd say this is sometime during the 1300s, because Crowley has many reasons to hate the 14th century.
> 
> If you're over on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](https://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness.
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

"Oh, you idiot!" Crowley burst into his room at the inn, dragging a limp, bloodied form behind him. "You should've stayed away!"

"You keep... you keep saying that... nnrghahhhh..."

Crowley half-laid, half-dropped Aziraphale onto his bed like a sack of turnips. "Come on, angel, let's get these off." His long lean hands were so calm and steady as they worked to remove Aziraphale's tunic and hose, he wasn't sure he was actually controlling them. The rest of him was shaking so badly, he thought he might vibrate apart. 

Certainly Aziraphale was trembling, and violently. 

"Oh no no no, not good," he muttered, face blanching in horror as wound after wound was revealed by the painstaking unsticking of the angel's clothing from his bleeding, already-putrifying flesh. "Oh this is... this is not good." He threw the ripped and tattered remains of Aziraphale's fine clothing into the corner of the room and stared down at the angel's naked, red-stained body, with stab wound after stab wound staring at him like accusing eyes.

"What asinine white knight impulse compelled you to step between me and a very obvious demon wielding a very obvious demonic blade?"

Aziraphale said nothing, only stared up at him with wild, pain-filled blue eyes. "Please..."

"I would have been _fine_ , angel!"

"Crowley, I—" His corporation was suddenly seized by vicious convulsions that practically lifted him from the bed and the bed from the floor. Crowley threw himself over Aziraphale, grabbing his wrists and pinning him to the straw mattress. 

"Stay with me, Aziraphale," Crowley babbled, squeezing his wrists and hoping he wouldn't actually have to lay on his friend to keep him from hurting himself further. "I'm here, listen to my voice - you hear me, angel? _Lisssten_ , listen to my voice."

Gradually, Aziraphale's muscles unlocked and relaxed, and his body slumped. Crowley gingerly released his wrists and stood. He looked down at his clothes and almost gagged; the angel's blood was smeared all over his clothes. Fighting an urge to vomit, Crowley pulled off his tunic and his shirt and tossed them into the corner as well. 

"Aziraphale? Can you hear me?"

"Y-yes. C-cold."

"I know. You're rotting away in front of me. If I don't draw the poisons out, it's going to destroy your body and probably the rest of you, too."

Crowley's hand was beside Aziraphale's on the mattress. Somehow, the angel managed to worm his fingers under Crowley's palm and squeeze. "Please..."

  
**[Art by glitchingicarus on Tumblr](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/186688475506/aziraphale-said-nothing-only-stared-up-at-him) **

"This isn't going to be pleasant," he warned. "For either of us."

He squeezed back and then laid his hands on Aziraphale's mutilated flesh. Crowley hung his head for a moment, resisting the urge to ask someone, anyone, for help. At best, no one would answer. At worst... someone would answer. 

And he wasn't about to risk that.

As gently as he could, he began to draw the noxious demonic poisons from the angel's body, once again fighting the urge to vomit. Because the only place for those poisons to go once they were out of Aziraphale was into Crowley. The difference was that he could handle the toxins. He'd be sick for a few days, but eventually they would dissipate. 

But in the meantime, he could taste every single vile putrid drop of venom that had been driven into Aziraphale's body, and they burned the angel viciously as he pulled them out. 

After what felt like days, Crowley dropped his hands, stumbled over to a convenient bucket, and puked. "That's definitely the worst bender I've ever been on," he gurgled, sliding down the wall into a boneless lump on the floor. And he would have gladly stayed there and never gotten up again...

A small whimper broke from the prone figure on the bed. 

Crowley gritted his teeth and vowed that when he was done, he was going to hunt down the useless snotball of an excuse for a demon who was responsible for this and teach him a thing or two about _creativity_. Then he forced himself to his feet with a superhuman effort and brought Aziraphale a cup of wine from the sideboard. 

He coaxed a few drops down Aziraphale's throat, and allowed himself to brush the limp blond hair back from Aziraphale's forehead. "Hurts," he whispered, tears running down his cheeks.

"I know," said Crowley said, every part of him aching so much he felt dragged down by the weight. "And it's going to hurt some more before I'm done, angel. Okay?"

Aziraphale pressed his lips together so tightly that all the blood was forced from them, turning them paper white. 

"Deep breaths," Crowley muttered, desperate for water, and started again. 

He had gotten rid of most of the poisons now (and whoever in R&D was responsible for these deserved a fucking medal, preferably one with rusty spikes that Crowley could slam into their eyes) and was getting into the literal meat of the problem, and while Crowley could be very good at basic human skin-and-bone healing, when you got down to essentials, he was still a demon and his patient was still an angel, and his hands and arms were melting and his brain was exploding inside his skull and Aziraphale was screaming – the body under his fingertips was catatonic with pain, but Crowley could hear Aziraphale screaming on another plane. 

  
**[Art by glitchingicarus on Tumblr](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/186688475506/aziraphale-said-nothing-only-stared-up-at-him) **

"I'm sorry," he forced through his teeth, pouring every ounce of effort he had into fixing the damage that his side had caused to his friend, whose only real unforgivable sin was and always had been his greatness of heart. "I'm so sorry—"

The room around him seemed to crumple like burning paper and Crowley did the same, crumbling to the floor as though his legs had turned to ash. All he could do was lie there, waiting for the fire to consume him and the inn and Aziraphale.

That didn't happen, and eventually he realized, rather surprised, that it wasn't _going_ to happen. 

He hitched himself over to the table where he had left the half-full wine cup and gulped it down thirstily. Only then did he dare to look at the bed. 

Aziraphale looked... whole. And healthy. And asleep. 

Oh, _sleep_ , Crowley really liked the sound of that. 

He crawled over the floor to the other side of the bed, pulled himself up next to Aziraphale, and committed himself to sleeping. 

The sun rose and set on the sleeping supernatural beings, and Aziraphale was still unconscious when Crowley woke up. At least that was what he thought, until he tried to remove the arm curled around his torso. 

"Stay," Aziraphale murmured softly. "Please."

Crowley's mouth went dry. "You're... you're alive. That's good." _I didn't kill you. Oh thank fuck, angel, I didn't kill you I didn't kill you I didn't kill you..._

"Thank you."

" _Don't_ thank me." Crowley jerked his arm away and sat up. "You nearly got yourself killed, and then I nearly destroyed us both trying to save you, and for what? Because you decided you needed to be a hero. What were you _thinking_ , Aziraphale?"

"I wasn't thinking, I'm afraid." Slowly, grunting in discomfort but only in discomfort, Aziraphale pushed himself into a sitting position. "I saw him coming at you, and I... reacted."

"You threw yourself between two demons to keep one of us from killing the other, is what you did." Sighing, Crowley twisted round to meet Aziraphale's eyes. "You can't do that, y'know. Goes against our non-interference policy. Could get both of us in trouble for that kind of good deed."

"Yes... yes, of course. I quite agree." A little smile seemed to be hovering on Aziraphale's lips, but it faded before it manifested fully, and he looked away. "Though I can't promise it will never happen again."

Crowley's jaw tightened, but he couldn't find the heart to argue the point. "You stay in bed, angel. Rest. I'll see about finding some breakfast for you."

He snapped his fingers over the pile of tattered clothes and retrieved his own shirt and tunic, now marvelously clean of angel blood. Aziraphale's restored clothes, he set on the table. Then he dressed and left the room without a word. 

Aziraphale looked down at his chest, and touched the unblemished skin softly. He barely remembered the numb shock of the initial stab or the agony of the poisoned wounds that followed. But Crowley's hands on his body, determined and skilled and gentle in spite of himself... those, he remembered.


End file.
